What is heavy oil upgrading?

UPGRADING. Upgrading is a process by which bitumen is transformed into light/sweet synthetic crude oil (SCO) by fractionation and chemical treatment, removing virtually all traces of sulphur and heavy metals. About one-third of Alberta’s bitumen is upgraded into SCO before being sold to downstream refineries.

What is oil upgrading?

The purpose of an upgrader is to, essentially, improve (or ‘upgrade’) the quality of an oil product so that it flows more easily and is more valuable. This is done by breaking very large oil molecules down into smaller ones, mostly by using high heat and pressure.

What do you mean by heavy oil?

Definition of heavy oil : an oil of high specific gravity specifically : a high-boiling distillate from tar.

What is an example of a heavy oil?

Heavy oil may refer to: Coal tar creosote, a wood preservative and waterproofing agent. Diesel fuel. Fuel oil that contains residual oil left over from petroleum distillation.

What are the reasons for upgrading an oil refinery?

Therefore, it is necessary to enhance their performance in a number of respects: raising refining capacity; improving oil product quality, optimising the product mix; achieving economies of scale; and exploring a process route with the characteristics of old refineries by exploiting their potential.

What do you mean by thermal upgrading of bitumen?

Bitumen upgrading is the chemical treatment of bitumen that is used in an attempt to increase its value by creating a substitute for high quality crude oil, known as a synthetic crude oil.

What is bitumen and how is it extracted and converted to heavy oil?

Deposit of a mixture of clay, sand, water, and varying amounts of a tarlike heavy oil known as bitumen. Bitumen can be extracted from tar sand by heating. It is then purified and upgraded to synthetic crude oil.

What is light and heavy oil?

Light crude oil is a low viscous oil that can freely flow at room temperature. Therefore, the key difference between heavy oil and light oil is that heavy oil has a high viscosity and cannot flow easily, whereas light oil has a low viscosity and can flow freely.

What are the characteristics of heavy oil?

The fundamental characteristics of heavy crude oils are high viscosity and density, chemical complexity, high acidity, high sulfur, increased level of metal and heteroatom impurities, high asphaltenes content, low American Petroleum Institute (API) gravity, and low H/C ratio [3].

What causes heavy oil?

Hot exhaust gases burn oil on stems of the exhaust valves. If there’s too much clearance between the valve stems and guides, the engine will suck more oil down the guides and into the cylinders. This could be caused by valve guide wear and seals that are worn, cracked, missing, broken or improperly installed.

What is fuel upgrading?

In addition to having low sulfur content, diesel fuel with a high cetane number (CN) allows for reduced emissions and improved engine efficiency for heavy farm equipment. Currently, hydroprocessing refineries produce diesel with cetane numbers around 40-45.

What is the main purpose of petroleum refining?

Petroleum refineries change crude oil into petroleum products for use as fuels for transportation, heating, paving roads, and generating electricity and as feedstocks for making chemicals. Refining breaks crude oil down into its various components, which are then selectively reconfigured into new products.

What is the difference between bitumen and crude oil?

What makes bitumen different from regular or conventional oil? Conventional crude oil is a liquid that can be pumped from underground deposits. It is then shipped by pipeline to refineries where it’s processed into gasoline, diesel and other fuels. Bitumen is too thick to be pumped from the ground or through pipelines.

What is the difference between heavy oil and bitumen?

Extra-heavy oil is that portion of heavy oil having an API gravity of less than 10°. Natural bitumen, also called tar sands or oil sands, shares the attributes of heavy oil but is yet more dense and viscous. Natural bitumen is oil having a viscosity greater than 10,000 cP.

What is bitumen and how is it extracted and converted to heavy oil quizlet?

How is heavy oil formed?

How Does Heavy Oil Form? The formation of heavy oil and bitumen, like other forms of petroleum, originated with plant life millions of years ago. When the plants and small organisms (plankton) that fed on them died off, the sediments containing their remains were buried at the bottom of inland seas.

Where is heavy oil found?

Heavy oil and bitumen are forms of crude oil that are more viscous (thicker) and dense. The largest crude oil deposits in the world are heavy oil, extra-heavy oil, and bitumen oil sands (also called tar sands) in Venezuela and Canada. The U.S. also has heavy oil and oil sands, mostly in California, Alaska, and Utah.

What is heavy oil in petroleum?

Heavy oil is a high density, highly viscous petroleum product from petrochemical refining. Its high content of sulfur, heavy metals, wax, and carbon residues makes it unsuitable for combustion.

What is biomass upgrading?

Biomass upgrading changes the properties of biomass to improve storage, transportation, pretreatment, and conversion. For example, upgrading can reduce moisture content and increase hydrophobicity, which reduces feedstock deterioration during storage.

Where is oil refined?

An oil refinery or petroleum refinery is an industrial process plant where petroleum (crude oil) is transformed and refined into useful products such as gasoline (petrol), diesel fuel, asphalt base, fuel oils, heating oil, kerosene, liquefied petroleum gas and petroleum naphtha.

What are heavy and extra-heavy oil upgrading technologies?

Brief but readable, Heavy and Extra-heavy Oil Upgrading Technologies provide readers with a strategy for future production (the up-stream) and upgrading (the down-stream).

What is heavy oil?

The definition of heavy oil is arbitrarily based on the API gravity or viscosity, and the definition is quite arbitrary, although there have been attempts to rationalize the definition based upon viscosity, API gravity, and density.

How much power does a ton of heavy oil generate?

One ton of heavy oil generates 11,306 kWh of electric power. In this alternative the mill purchases sufficient heavy oil to supply all of its electrical power requirements. The sugar mill will require 40 tons of heavy oil per 1,000 tons of cane.

What is the viscosity of heavy oil at high temperatures?

The dynamic viscosity of this heavy oil reaches hundreds of thousands of millipascal-seconds at 50°C. Even with an increased temperature of 80 or 100°C, the dynamic viscosity is still as high as dozens of millipascal-seconds. For instance, the dynamic viscosity of the heavy oil in the Wuermu field can exceed 500 mPa s at 100°C.